


Warlocks

by Lunarium



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Halloween, M/M, Pumpkins, Secret Past, Sheithalloween, WITCHES AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 16:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: While Keith carves pumpkins and mingles with their witch friends, Shiro protects him from an enemy he had long ago forgotten.





	Warlocks

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Witches-nighttime for Sheith Halloween! Hope you enjoy! Happy Sheithalloween! <3 
> 
> In case you’re wondering why Keith seems a bit, hmm, OOC/too naïve here, don’t worry, it’ll be addressed. :)

The plate of glass beads, in shapes of pumpkins, acorns, and autumn leaves, reflected the glimmering light from the tips of deft fingers as Keith worked through spell after spell nearby. Candlelight twitched and swayed in the gentle breeze. Shiro smiled encouragingly as he helped along with the spell; his right arm had been previously amputated a little below the shoulder joint, but in place of an arm and hand, swirls of violet light and twining branches comprised in the shape of the previous form. 

Jars of herbs, dried leaves, and other potion-making ingredients shook on their shelves as the spell took hold. A moment later, the carved pumpkin on the table lit up from within, and the crooked smile widened to a toothy grin. 

“Lovely evening, gentlemen,” it crooned happily. “I do wonder how many kiddies will be stopping by tonight?” 

Keith keened. “It worked!” 

“I had no doubt about it,” Shiro said. “You were attentive to your intention and incantation. You’ve practiced your wristwork; I can see that, Keith.” 

He gave Keith’s shoulder a loving squeeze in congratulations. Keith stood about three heads shorter than Shiro, and with his thinner frame, seemed much smaller. Excited over his successful magic, he hopped to the table, picked the Jack-o-lantern off the table, and took him outside. 

“Patio?” Keith asked. “I think this one wants to greet the visitors.” 

“Then the patio will do,” Shiro agreed. He turned his attention to applying some unrefined salt and herbs — cardamon, peppercorns, fennel seeds — into a small pouch for the son of one of the witches who would be coming later that day. A small crystal accompanied the herbs as did a small slip of paper upon which he wrote an incantation in ink; the ink turned gold and crimson and glimmering black as he wrote. 

Keith returned just as Shiro had finished up and dragged over the next pumpkin in hopes of it joining its friend, who was now singing opera at the patio (they could hear it singing “The Barber of Seville” and had to stop to give one another an amused look before resuming their work.) 

“I wasn’t thinking about opera when I gave it life!” Keith protested. 

“Must have heard it in the farmer’s truck before it was brought over to the markets,” Shiro said as he chuckled warmly. “You really enjoyed yourself at the farmer’s market.” 

Keith nodded proudly, looking back at the ground. An entire corner of the kitchen was taken up with dozens of pumpkins: large and round, tall and slim, warm amber, white golden, a couple spotted with green, most smooth-skinned, others warty. 

“It’s going to be a long afternoon.” 

The sun had set with the barest hint of its light still reflected up in the sky when both sensed a newcomer nearing their home. By now the front porch was filled with Jack-o-lanterns, most of whom were thankfully not as musically inclined as the first. 

Keith leaned out of the window and groaned loudly. 

“It’s that insufferable hag Haggar!” he whined. “Oh! But Allura and Pidgey are with her!” 

“That’s _Pidge_!” Shiro called out after Keith’s retreating back as he made a dash for the front door. Shiro shook his head and laughed. 

He wiped his hands on a clean towel and made to follow him before something stirred behind him. Pausing, he focused his attention on the source of the presence, tracing it to outside their humble home. 

Adjacent to the kitchen was the laundry room, and beyond that was another door to the backyard. There the presence lingered, neither human nor departed spirit. A chill trickled up Shiro’s left arm. He shot up a renewed surge of magical energy through his other arm and draped his cape to hide it before making his way to the back. 

The closer he got, the worst the tremors in his heart became. He stole a look behind his shoulder. He could see Pidge still gripping Keith tightly around the middle after having spun him around. Allura chattered away happily, her silvery voice filling their living room with warmth. Three pointed hats hung on the wall over their black cloaks. Haggar stood and mostly let Allura do the talking, but an amused smile played on her wise and aged face. 

Shiro’s hand turned the knob of the backdoor slowly, anticipating force pushing inside, but when none came, he slipped outside. He kept his back right against door, protecting the house and everyone within it, and peered around himself. 

A cool fog curled about the ground. Trick-or-treaters coming in would need more sources of light, and Shiro was thankful for Keith’s obsession in making all the lit pumpkins for outside. The chill that carried in the air was still warmer, welcoming in their familiarity, compared to the cold threat that lingered nearby. 

“Show yourself,” Shiro commanded, his voice low but firm. 

Barely visible to the naked eye, Shiro felt it more than saw it; it parted from the mist as a shadow, lost in the dying of the light. 

“Shirogane, warlock,” it hissed. “Know that the boy within your walls belonged once to me.” 

Shiro’s arm glowed bright as he directed it towards the parted pathway in the mist. 

“Keith is safe with me. Keith will remain with me.” 

“He is not of your kind. The others take note of his naivety.” 

“He is deserving of respect as much as all of my friends. Now, begone!”

The shadow hissed out in pain as the spell struck it. Shiro felt it reeling back. 

“The demon-boy does not deserve to walk in these lands.” 

“I will be the judge of that, for it is my house that Keith lives in.”

“I will reclaim him.” 

Anger flared across Shiro’s eyes. “To take him, you must first get past me!” 

He held out his right hand, and from the hollow groove in his palm shot out another curse.

⁂

The rest of the night passed without incident. Haggar received her commission from Shiro with delight.

“It is a spell I have learned from a friend,” Shiro explained. “I hope my own magic would be sufficient.” 

Haggar bowed as she took his offering. “My son will have great use for this. Thank you.” 

The trick-or-treaters had come and gone, and the night slipped into darkness. The Jack-o-lanterns hummed as they continued to light the path, their golden-amber light casting into the small home of the two warlocks. 

When it was over, Keith snuggled up into Shiro’s arms on their favorite couch as he mumbled sadly about how Halloween always came and went too quickly. Shiro smiled and ruffled his hair. From the angle that Keith rested, Shiro had a clear view of his back under his tunic. The thick black scars where once his wings had been, before Shiro had freed him from the demons who had enslaved the poor spirit, losing an arm in the process (an act Shiro thought was well worth the effort.) Back then Keith had been very small, small enough to fit in Shiro’s hand. After nursing him to full health, the spirit took on more of a human form, his wings long having fallen off. If Keith remembered anything of his previous life, he never showed it. And Shiro never asked. Perhaps it was better this way. 

“I say you experienced Halloween to the fullest,” Shiro said and kissed the top of Keith’s head. 

Keith gave a little sound of displeasure. “But I have to wait for another year to experience more of it.” He kissed Shiro on the lips before falling asleep in his arms. 

Shiro smiled. “The pumpkins will be waiting for you.”


End file.
